


fear.

by sniikt



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, this is sad please don't come here if you want something happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniikt/pseuds/sniikt
Summary: fear always seems relative--until it doesn't.





	fear.

Joel thought he had felt fear.

 

He thought he felt it when Lizzie calls him early one Saturday morning in the early spring, her voice all shaky and quiet as she tells him she really needs to talk to him.

She tells him to meet her at the diner a few blocks away--the place he would take her on Friday nights and sling his arm around her shoulders while they laughed with some friends.

He practically chews through his lip with nervous energy on his drive to the diner--running ten minutes late since the old truck he’d fixed up a few years ago hadn’t wanted to start.

And when he sees her, waiting out front, wringing her hands nervously, streaks of mascara on her cheeks--well, he’s sure that she’s breaking up with him. 

She doesn’t.

She hands him a positive pregnancy test with a choked sob, and Joel’s entire world narrows to those two little pink lines, and the fear that keeps him from from moving--or even speaking--for the next ten minutes.

 

He thought he had felt fear then.

 

He thought he had felt it when he helped Lizzie through the door of their apartment for the first time, freshly dismissed from the hospital, baby bag slung over one shoulder, and the most perfect little baby girl bundled up in his arms. The apartment is dark and grey, and too small, and has one threadbare couch in the middle of the room. He’s nineteen, six months out of high school, and as Sarah begins to fuss, he’s intensely aware that he has no idea how to be a good dad or husband, and he has no idea how he’s going make a home for them.

 

He thought he had felt fear then.

 

He thought he had felt it when he had found the note on the kitchen table when Sarah was six months old. When he read the words “I’m sorry, but I have to go”, over and over, as Sarah began to fuss in her crib, and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until tears begin to smear the ink.

He folds the paper carefully, placing it back in the envelope as if by doing so, it might disappear, and it will be like he never saw it at all.

And then he picks up Sarah, and tries to comfort her through his own tears, as the realization that they’re completely and utterly alone seeps into his bones.

 

He thought he had felt fear then.

 

But he hadn’t really felt fear until twelve years later, as pained sobs and gasps subside, and he’s hunting for a pulse that’s not there. As he prays to God to take him, not her, never her. As he holds her close, so close, but not close enough, because it’s not close enough to give her his own heartbeat.

 

He hadn’t felt fear until then.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a few days ago and idk? i don't hate it yet? so i'm posting it i guess


End file.
